Graduate Fashion Week 2010: Bournemouth

The collections provided a lesson in Print Making and structural design and the arrival, perhaps of childrenswear at Graduate Fashion Week?!

Rachael Browne’s take on little girl dressing opened Bournemouth’s catwalk with a collection adorned in a riotous array of colour and print. From the marble swirl tops and matching socks to the dresses adorned with animal illustrations.

It was glorious, site reminding one of the joy to be had with clothes.

There appears to be no escaping the digital print this season, but Mariya Shulga showed there was still room for maneuver with her collection adorned with bricks. Design perhaps for the girl that needs to make a quick get away… The necklaces referencing the iron walls we city dwellers all too often find ourselves surrounded by.

Rather than subject the audience to children acting as models, they cartwheeled, skipped, held hands and cycled down the catwalk showcasing a rather lovely collection celebrating the joy of being a child.

Roxanne Newton’s perspex geometretic necklaces a nod to the Holly Fulton’s A/W 2010 Collection. The laser cutting evident on the skirts combined with the bold prints was fantastic, producing a rather lovely silhouette.

Lottie McLaughlin collection was inspired by time’s imposition on our lives – so beautifully caricatured by Lewis Carroll’s White Rabbit and his ticking clock, perpetually counting down time, marking the moments lost forever. The weight of time is wonderfully reinvented in this strong collection where the detris of time hangs over the shoulders of the models.

Inspired by Tchaikovsky’s Ballet: The Nutcracker’s set design to the costumes Sharp took the typically sweet image of the ballet from the tutus to the mountain of sweets and transformed it into the tight rolls of fabric that strode down the catwalk.

Emma Graham’s first collection made stark the lack of designers experimenting with found materials. A dirty dystopic selection of garments perhaps encouraged by the types of materials found by the designer. The detailing on the clothes and the juxaposition of clothes was ingenious, it was however a shame to see fur on the catwalk whether recycled or not.